Stuck in the Rut
by monkeygirl77
Summary: A call to a race track accident lands too close to home for the Tracy family.


**Just something that came to mind! **

* * *

Smoke filled the air.

The crowd was silent.

Everything was still.

Alan Tracy lay unconscious in the middle of everything, as did two other drivers.

* * *

There was not a lot of information given to John when the call had been given. Only a few basic memos and little bits of detail. Apparently there had been a horrid crash a NASCAR track. A massive pile up, cars on top of cars. People buried under neath. Fire spreading fast. That was it.

No more.

John had called it in think that it would be a rescue like all others. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that they never had to deal with before. Simply routine.

Oh how hard he wished he had been right.

* * *

When Scott had arrived, the others not far behind, the first thing that he saw was the cars. Like the caller had said, piled on top of each other, people were screaming. The crowd was reacting in panic as any normal person would. Scott ran out of his Bird, helmet on, a field commander at the ready.

A man was running towards him, a distraction to take his eyes off the carnage. Georges Mansfawn, the man who owned the track, was running towards him. The air was filling with smoke that came somewhere from within the pile of cars. Georges came to a stop in front of him, panting about how glad he was that the Thunderbird's were here, how they had to save them, save them all.

"Who? Who's under there?"

Georges looked up at him, tears brimming in his eyes from the pour quality of air. With a shaking finger, the large man pointed at the cars lining the crash zone, no doubt also at the ones under the pile as well.

"N-Number 26 Ian Harper, number 73 Jerry Klingon, Number 16 Alan Tracy"

Scott's heart stopped. They knew that the sprout had been doing some exploring in the different race tracks, but never had they thought that he was actually in the cars on them, he was only 16! He thanks Georges quickly before turning tail and running back to the others.

This had just went from bad to worse.

* * *

Alan coughed somewhat as he came around.

It was dark.

His legs hurt.

Those were the first two things that he noticed as his body came around. Coughing again the sixteen year old tried sitting up only to grimace and fall back into the dust. That was a load of painful crap.

"H-Help! H-Help M-Me!"

He just hoped that if anybody was on top, that they could hear him. His eyes widened at the warmness near his pain filled legs.

Fire.

There was a fire.

And his car was leaking fuel.

* * *

"ALAN'S WHAT!"

"He's under there, apparently sprout has an ID that makes him out to be 22 instead of 16"

"Guys look!"

Everyone stopped talking at the same moment to see what Gordon was pointing at. The fire that wasn't so visible before was growing. One of the cars had to be feeding into it from somewhere. But that meant that Alan was trapped under there with no escape and a fire that was drawing ever closer.

The Tracy's wasted no time in running into action. Gordon and Virgil were removing the rubble one piece at a time while Scott dug through the debris with his hands every so often looking up to see the fires location and strength. Back at headquarters, Jeff Tracy was rapidly praying for the life of his youngest to pull through this.

Scott pulled away a piece of what seemed like the fender of a car when he heard it. A voice that was so familiar and one that he had never been so happy to hear in his entire life, one that was far to weak and filled with far to much pain for his liking.

The voice of Alan.

* * *

Alan coughed as more dust fell on top of him, light was starting to pour in on him. Whether it was from the fire that was becoming too close for comfort or that the rubble was starting to be lifted away, he didn't really care all to much at this point (although he really wanted it to be the first one) His pants legs were thick as they had to be for this type of career, but even they weren't fire proof. The flames were beginning to rub against them.

This was not good.

Something above him gave way and light filtered in, light from fake lighting above the stadium and faces. Faces were coming into view.

"Alan?"

"H-Hey Scotty"

* * *

When the last piece of what ever it was keeping the door stuck in place gave out they were able to easily pull it free. Scott looked into the hole they had created hoping for the life of him that Alan would still be in one piece. Looking back at him was his sixteen year old brother, seemingly in one piece. It was hard to be certain seeing as his eyes drifted down to where Alan was stuck under the fender of another car.

Alan blinked in the blinding light and wiped some of the ash and oil off of his face. Scott was pushed aside as Virgil and Gordon came up next to him, both peering into the whole that their youngest brother was trapped in.

Virgil was the first to break out of the frenzied silence at the shocking realization that Alan was stuck in the middle of this inferno rut. Quickly jumping to his role as team medic (maybe a bit of an older brothers protectiveness surging in as well) he assessed the situation thoroughly. He noticed the fender trapping Alan inside, he noticed the fire ever growing a couple of feet away, and he noticed John's never ending chatter for an update.

"Alright guys, we got to get him out before he burns to a crisp ('ever the reassuring one aye Virg' 'Al don't dig yourself a deeper grave') Al are you ok? Anything we should know about before we try and pull you up?"

Alan gave him a deadpanned look, "Well beside the pain in my leg and the rising heat from the fire, everything's dandy Virgil, how are you doing?"

Virgil realized only then that it was a silly question to have asked, but it was too late to take it back now. It was good to have Alan talking to them, well, Gordon, instead of focusing on the fuel fed fire quickly spreading his way.

* * *

John swore he couldn't breath, he had stopped breathing, Alan was stuck under the cars.

Alan was stuck under the cars.

He waited impatiently as he tapped his foot, checking the airlock camera every two seconds to see if Brains was there yet. After Scott had told him of Alan, their baby brother, was under all the ruble he had immediately put Five on auto and told them all he was coming home. They hadn't said anything in disagreement and Jeff had sent up Brains to retrieve John, and to meet them at the hospital.

Brains had seemed surprised when he had heard from Jeff that Alan was in the track accident, and he had called Fermat almost immediately to tell him, the younger boy hadn't been as surprised to hear of Alan's whereabouts as they had thought he would be. Alan had always taken an interest in racing, the thrill he had told John once, was what made it all worth it.

It wasn't about getting there, it was about how you got there. Alan was a cup half full kind of kid. But even John, who always seemed to know more about Alan then the rest seemed surprised to hear of him actually racing, it made sense sure, but surprised none the less.

The beeping alerted the astronaut of Brains docking into air lock, and with a mighty swoosh the great air tight doors opened. John had jumped through before they were fully open.

* * *

It was turning out to be harder then they had thought to get Alan out from underneath all the cars.

Being a Tracy, he had refused help until he knew that the other drivers stuck under with him were out and safe. And the fire was still burning strong, the cars were still fully fueled. Moving the wreckage could drop more fuel into the flames and Alan could burn alive. But not moving them fast enough could also mean that they could leak and Alan would burn as well.

They were at a cross road, and it wasn't one that they ever wanted to be at. It took everything they had to keep from panicking.

Alan could sense the tension in the air and started to panic for them. Which was not a good thing either.

"Scott, guys, its getting really hot down here"

Alan coughed hard for a moment before repeating how he was getting hot. The older boys were working quickly but carefully trying to keep Alan calm but not fully succeeding as they were trying more as to calm their nerves as much as they were trying to calm their panicking brothers. Virgil spoke into his ear piece and jumped from one the race track cranes running over to the slowly heating up widening hole Alan was in. He skid to a stop on his knees and reached down with his ear piece.

"Virg its getting closer and my leg is really starting to hurt and its hot and I'm scared. Get me out! Please! Get me out!"

Virgil felt for his brother he really did. He wanted nothing more in that moment, witnessing his normally strong collected baby brother begin to break down before his eyes, to pull him into his arms and assure him that everything was going to be ok.

But he couldn't.

Alan was still stuck and the best he could do was, "Allie, here, Johnny wants to talk to you"

His baby blonde brothers eyes widened briefly in realization at the unspoken words behind the short direct statement. They couldn't get him out, yet. Oh God, he hoped the unspoken words included a 'yet'. Alan nodded and reached up, grimacing, and barely brushed Virgil hand as he reached for the ear piece.

Sticking it in his ear, he was glad to hear his older blonde brothers reassuring voice.

_"Allie? You there?"_

"I'm here Johnny. Its hot, why won't they get me out already?"

_"I know buddy, they're getting there, but enough of that, tell me about your race"_

Alan knew what John was doing in that moment, and he was real thankful for the distraction.

"I was kicking as- butt Johnny! Second place, one more round and almost matched up for first until-"

_"How long have you been racing?"_

"Couple weeks...", Alan paused as he watched as the flames crawled forward,"Johnny, oh god, Johnny I want out of here! I swear to everything that is anything that I will never touch another race track if they get me out of here! Please make them move faster Johnny! I wanna go home!"

* * *

They all could tell by the tone of Alan's voice he was on the brink of having a panic attack, when the two cars above him gave way.

It was as if a miracle had struck.

They fell the other way and pulled the fender off of Alan's leg.

Gordon ran in quickly and grabbed Alan. Ignoring the scream his baby brother let out as his leg was jostled.

The cars both landed in the licking flames.

Gordon was just out of the line of fire when they went up.

* * *

Alan came to for the first time with the sound of beeping all around him.

He felt something rub the back of his hand, another grasp his uninjured leg, something was brushing his hair out of his face, another was on his other hand, and someone was gently rubbing his cheek with what he guessed was their thumb.

"Allie? Come on, wake up baby, everything's ok now. Open your baby blues blondie"

Alan slowly opened his eyes, was met with five happy but worried faces. His leg was in a large cast and his leg felt weird, but all in all he felt pretty good. Must have been the drugs.

"Alan, only you could scare the crap out of us all in one go"

"You ever do that again and I swear that it will take more than that to stop me from-"

"You scared the crap out of me Allie"

"Blondie, you ever scare me like that again and I will end you"

If he had ever had any thoughts of his family not liking him, he was proved wrong in that moment. And the next three weeks to come.

He went back on his word though, he was racing again, this time in legal age range.

* * *

**The ending kind of sucked and I apologize immensely for that! But, besides that, tell me what you think! **

**Reviews equal sunshine and rainbows!**


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